As of Wednesday, December 31, 2014, at least 2,356 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan as a result of the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to iCasualties.org.

Since the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, 17,674 U.S. service members have been wounded as of Sept. 30, 2012, the latest number reported by iCasualties.org.

Air Force Capt. William H. Dubois, 30, New Castle, Colorado, died Dec. 1, 2014 when his F-16 aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff near a coalition air base in the Middle East while heading out on a mission in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the military’s battle against Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria. He was assigned to the 77th Fighter Squadron, Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina.

At the end of this year, as our Afghan partners assume responsibility for the security of their country, the United States officially concludes Operation Enduring Freedom. Our combat mission in Afghanistan, which began in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, will come to an end.

In 2015, we begin our follow-on mission, Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, to help secure and build upon the hard-fought gains of the last 13 years.

I want to express my deep gratitude to all U.S. personnel, both military and civilian, who have served in Afghanistan since 2001, many on multiple deployments. I also thank the thousands more who were a part of the mission at home and around the world. In fighting America’s longest war, our people and their families have borne a heavy burden, and some paid the ultimate price.

From my first trip to Afghanistan in 2002 to my visit earlier this month, I have seen firsthand the hard and heroic work done by American military and civilian personnel. That work and their sacrifices have made our world safer and given Afghanistan the opportunity to chart a secure, democratic, and prosperous future. I also want to thank and acknowledge our International Security Assistance Force partners for their indispensable work and sacrifice in helping strengthen Afghanistan.

In Operation Freedom’s Sentinel, the United States will pursue two missions with the support of the Afghan government and the Afghan people. We will work with our allies and partners as part of NATO’s Resolute Support Mission to continue training, advising, and assisting Afghan security forces. And we will continue our counterterrorism mission against the remnants of Al-Qaeda to ensure that Afghanistan is never again used to stage attacks against our homeland.

The United States remains strongly committed to a sovereign, secure, stable, and unified Afghanistan. As we responsibly draw down our military presence, we will continue to partner together with Afghan forces to combat terrorism and create a better future for the Afghan people. And through enduring security cooperation, we will continue assisting the Afghan government to build its capacity and self-sufficiency, as we transition to the next phase of the U.S.-Afghanistan defense relationship. We will continue to work with our Afghan partners to secure the great progress we have made since 2001 and to seize this defining moment of opportunity for Afghanistan’s future.

Today’s issue of the St. Cloud Times features an Associated Press retrospective of 6th District Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) four terms in Congress. Following are excerpts from the article, annotated with added content.

“After a turbulent career dotted by fights with the left and her own party, and a fast-rising and fast-fading presidential campaign, Bachmann said she is ready to leave, her work in Congress complete.”

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann hugs a supporter during a recent tribute event for her at Monticello High School. (Photo: Dave Schwarz / St. Cloud Times)

St. Cloud Times via the Associated PressDecember 8, 2014

WASHINGTON — An audacious conservative, Minnesota’s 6th District Rep. Michele Bachmann stood out from the moment she was first elected to Congress in 2006. Democrats were ascendant and Bachmann was a stridently Republican new arrival with a homespun twang.

Four terms later, Bachmann is leaving just as Republicans take control of Congress for the first time since she was elected. After a turbulent career dotted by fights with the left and her own party, and a fast-rising and fast-fading presidential campaign, Bachmann said she is ready to leave, her work in Congress complete.

“I didn’t get sucked into the system of Washington,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I didn’t become a politician. I was a constitutional conservative.”

That role Bachmann carved for herself often placed her in the spotlight during her eight years in office. She provided a consistently conservative voice on television on issues ranging from health care to immigration, and even delivered a “tea party response” to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address in 2011 that overlapped with her party’s official rebuttal.

Speaking on MSNBC in 2008, she said that Obama “may have anti-American views.” The comment led to a flood of donations to her opponent and a narrow, three-point victory in one of Minnesota’s most conservative congressional districts. In recent years, she has said Obama’s policies put America on a path to “Marxism.”

Bachmann has rarely walked anything back. “I don’t have a lot of regrets from my time here,” she said.

Democrats alternated between derision and anger at her outlandish comments, which even some former members of her staff say stretched the truth or were outright false. “Who cares?” Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi once responded, when asked about Bachmann’s response to a Supreme Court ruling that allowed gay marriages to go forward in many states.

Bachmann began her career as a tax attorney. She lost her first election, a bid for a school board seat, in 1999, but the next year her devout following of cultural conservatives first lifted her to victory in a competitive state Senate primary and again, when the 6th Congressional District seat opened, put her ahead of three other candidates at a nominating convention in 2006. No one challenged her in the primary that year. She successfully campaigned on conservative values and talked proudly of raising five children and 23 foster children.

“I think her major innovation was in politics,” said Larry Jacobs, a professor at the University of Minnesota. “I don’t think she leaves behind a traditional legacy in terms of monuments and buildings — I think she showed again and again her ability to mobilize new forces in politics.”

Listing her own career highlights, Bachmann offers a mix of local projects and conservative flashpoints. Among her proudest moments, she said, were opposing her own party during the 2008 financial bailout and leading the House opposition to Obama’s health care overhaul. One of her most vivid memories, she said, is thousands of opponents of the health care law coming to Washington and marching near the Capitol waving signs and flags.

But she’s equally quick to draw attention to her district in the Twin Cities suburbs. Bachmann said would have run again if Congress had not approved a $700 million bridge over the St. Croix River linking Stillwater with Houlton, Wisconsin. She is also proud of her work on adoption and foster care issues. One of her last official trips as a member of Congress, over the Thanksgiving holiday, was to an orphanage in Haiti.

As she wrapped up her congressional business this past week, Bachmann said she is determined to play a role in the next presidential election. The possibility of Democrats nominating Hillary Rodham Clinton will make the voices of Republican women more important than ever, she said.

“I occupy a very unique space,” she said. “I am the only woman who has been in presidential debates on the Republican ticket.”

Her own presidential bid began in June 2011 and peaked with a win in a key Iowa straw poll, but she never found traction with voters as real ballots were cast. While she has “no intention right now of running for president,” she also won’t rule it out.

“I think it will develop as we go what my level of involvement will be,” she said.

As of Sunday, November 30, 2014, at least 2,353 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan as a result of the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to iCasualties.org.

Since the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, 17,674 U.S. service members have been wounded as of Sept. 30, 2012, according to iCasualties.org.

Army Sgt. Maj. Wardell B. Turner, 48, Nanticoke, Maryland, died Nov. 24, 2014 in Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered in a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack. He was assigned to Headquarters, United States Army Garrison, Fort Drum, New York.

As of Friday, October 31, 2014, at least 2,350 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan as a result of the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to iCasualties.org.

Since the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, 17,674 U.S. service members have been wounded as of Sept. 30, 2012, according to iCasualties.org.

Latest identifications: Afghanistan

Army Maj. Jonathan D. Walker, 44, Merriam, Kansas, died Oct. 1, 2014 in Doha, Qatar, of a noncombat-related incident at Camp As Sayliyah. He was assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Psychological Operations Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Former Army Ranger Pfc. Peter Edward (Abdul-Rahman) Kassig, 26, Indianapolis, Indiana, died on an undetermined date in October or November 2014, at an unspecified location in Syria, as the result of execution by Islamic State militants. He enlisted in the Army in 2004, joined the U.S. Army Rangers in 2006, and deployed to Iraq with the 75th Ranger Regiment from April to July 2007. He was honorably discharged for medical reasons in September 2007. He was captured on October 1, 2013 on his way to Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria while providing aid relief.

On behalf of all the men and women of the Department of Defense, I extend my deepest condolences to the family of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known to us as Peter, who time and again volunteered his service during times of war — first as an Army Ranger in Iraq, and later as a devoted humanitarian, providing aid to victims of the conflict in Syria. Like his fellow veterans of the 9/11 generation, his strong desire to continue making a difference in the world after serving in uniform — to continue leading a life of purpose — is an inspiration to us all. His brutal murder is one more reminder of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL) ruthless barbarity; there is no starker contrast between the inhumanity of ISIL and the bright and generous spirit of the young man they murdered. As we join his loved ones in mourning his loss, we also celebrate his service, and we celebrate his commitment — a lifetime commitment to, as he said, “stand beside those who might need a helping hand.”

Today we offer our prayers and condolences to the parents and family of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, also known to us as Peter. We cannot begin to imagine their anguish at this painful time.

Abdul-Rahman was taken from us in an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity. Like Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff before him, his life and deeds stand in stark contrast to everything that ISIL represents. While ISIL revels in the slaughter of innocents, including Muslims, and is bent only on sowing death and destruction, Abdul-Rahman was a humanitarian who worked to save the lives of Syrians injured and dispossessed by the Syrian conflict. While ISIL exploits the tragedy in Syria to advance their own selfish aims, Abdul-Rahman was so moved by the anguish and suffering of Syrian civilians that he traveled to Lebanon to work in a hospital treating refugees. Later, he established an aid group, SERA, to provide assistance to Syrian refugees and displaced persons in Lebanon and Syria. These were the selfless acts of an individual who cared deeply about the plight of the Syrian people.

ISIL’s actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own. Today we grieve together, yet we also recall that the indomitable spirit of goodness and perseverance that burned so brightly in Abdul-Rahman Kassig, and which binds humanity together, ultimately is the light that will prevail over the darkness of ISIL.

The Pentagon on Friday reported the first death of a U.S. military serviceman in Iraq in its new mission to combat Islamic State militants who have seized large areas of Iraq and Syria.

Marine Lance Cpl. Sean Neal, a 19-year-old from California, died in Baghdad on Thursday in what a Pentagon statement described as a noncombat incident. Further details about how Neal died were not immediately available.

Earlier this month, a Marine [Cpl. Jordan L. Spears] was deemed lost at sea after he fell from an aircraft into the Arabian Gulf.

The Pentagon said Neal’s death was the first U.S. casualty in Iraq since the Obama administration began its “Inherent Resolve” mission, which now includes airstrikes against the extremist group in Iraq and Syria and a growing number of U.S. military personnel on the ground in Iraq in August. …

“There’ve been some suspects that we’ve had to look at, and Jerry and I would look at each other and you’d just sort of pray that it’s not that guy. Because if it’s that guy, it’s not a good ending. It was a really harsh, horrible ending.” …

“Jerry and I and our kids were forced to look at a very dark side of life — in suspects that would come forward, in different scenarios people would send us,” Patty said. …

“It’s time for answers. If Jacob’s not alive, we need to know that,” Patty said. “Either way, we need to know who did that. We need to know that other kids are safe, and this person is not harming anybody else. …

Even after 25 painful, frustrating years, Patty manages to maintain an element of compassion for Jacob’s abductor.

ST. CLOUD – Jacob Wetterling has been missing for nearly 25 years, and on Tuesday [Oct. 14, 2014] officials are launching a new effort to find him.

The National Center For Missing & Exploited Children, the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office, the BCA, and FBI are holding a news conference [at the Stearns County Law Enforcement Center] in St. Cloud asking the public for help in the continued search for Wetterling. Billboards will also be placed in six locations around the area. …

Billboards will blanket the St. Joseph, Minn., area in a new effort to find Jacob Wetterling, who was abducted 25 years ago this month.

Officials will announce the new campaign at a Tuesday news conference in St. Cloud. The six billboards will feature a photo of Jacob as a kid and a picture of what Jacob might look like at age 36. …

Backed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, among others, the new campaign seeks the public’s help in the search. The billboards, placed in spots near the abduction, will urge anyone with information to call 1-800-THE-LOST.

Satellite image of the Wetterling abduction site and surrounding area shows how few residences there are in the vicinity. The development northwest of the abduction site did not exist and consisted of woodland at the time of Jacob’s kidnapping in 1989 (Google Earth /Joy Baker; click on image for larger display;view map of abduction site)

On Sunday, Dec. 19, 2009, the third and final day of Jacob’s Freedom Walk for Missing and Abducted Children, Vietnam vets, led by Mike Clark and Jerry Wetterling, are met by Jacob’s mother Patty Wetterling upon arriving at the site where 11-year-old Jacob was abducted on Sunday, October 22, 1989, about half a mile from the Wetterling home in rural St. Joseph, Minn. After a prayer, three rifle rounds are fired as the universal symbol of letting the lost or missing know they’re being searched for.

U.S. Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Aaron Larson poses with his fiancée Jackie Tentinger and 2-year-old son, Anikan, as he arrives home April 17, 2009 in Slayton, Minn., after a year-long deployment in Iraq. As an 11-year-old boy in St. Joseph, Aaron was with his best friend Jacob Wetterling when Jacob was kidnapped by a masked gunman on Sunday, Oct. 22, 1989. (Photo credit: Justine Wettschreck — Daily Globe /Associated Press)

As of Monday, September 3o, 2014, at least 2,348 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan as a result of the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to iCasualties.org.

Since the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, 17,674 U.S. service members have been wounded as of Sept. 30, 2012, according to iCasualties.org.

Civilian Stephen Byus, 39, Reynoldsburg, Ohio, a member of the United States Navy Reserves on his third tour of duty in the Middle East, died Sept. 16, 2014 in Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered in a suicide car bomb attack. He was a member of the Defense Logistics Agency Land and Maritime in Columbus, Ohio, working as a supply specialist assigned to the Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan while deployed.

As of Sunday, August 31, 2014, at least 2,343 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan as a result of the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to iCasualties.org.

Since the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, 17,674 U.S. service members have been wounded as of Sept. 30, 2012, according to iCasualties.org.

Latest identifications:

Army Green Beret Staff Sgt. Girard D. Gass Jr., Lumber Bridge, North Carolina, died Aug. 3, 2014 in Jalalabad Air Field Hospital, Afghanistan, from a noncombat-related incident sustained while on patrol in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Army Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene, 55, Schenectady, N.Y., died Aug. 5, 2014 in Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds caused by small-arms fire in an insider attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was assigned as deputy commanding general of Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Matthew I. Leggett, 39, Ruskin, Florida, died Aug. 20, 2014 in Kabul, Afghanistan, of injuries received when he was engaged by the enemy. He was assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Jacob Wetterling at age 11, left, and what authorities think he would look like today, using age progression software. (The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children)

Amy Carlson GustafsonAugust 28, 2014

On Sunday [Aug. 31, 2014], CNN’s “The Hunt with John Walsh” will feature a 25-year-old Minnesota cold case. The first half of the show focuses on Jacob Wetterling, the 11-year-old boy who was kidnapped while riding his bike in his hometown of St. Joseph on Oct. 22, 1989.

“The Hunt With John Walsh” features unsolved and ongoing crime investigations. Walsh was the host of the long-running “America’s Most Wanted” before it was canceled in 2011 after airing for more than two decades on Fox.

As of Thursday, July 31, 2014, at least 2,338 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan as a result of the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to iCasualties.org.

Since the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, 17,674 U.S. service members have been wounded as of Sept. 30, 2012, according to iCasualties.org.